A Christmas of a Kind
by Dr.Kerry
Summary: Carter decides to pay a visit to Kerry to wish her a Merry Christmas and their Christmas Eve turns to be better than both of them had expected. R for sexual situation in later chapters


Title: A Christmas of a kind Author: Dr.Kerry Category: Kerry/Carter romance. Just a bit of Angst at the beginning. Setting: Alternative season 7. So, no Kim. Sorry. Rating: NC-17 for graphic sex scenes Spoilers: No spoilers! Feedback: Yes Yes Yes Yes!!! Bad and good to Dr.Kerry@libero.it Summary: Carter decides to pay a visit to Kerry to wish her a Merry Christmas and their Christmas Eve turns to be better than both of them had expected Author's note: This idea popped in my head last Christmas but school didn't let me develop it so I thought I'd give it a try this year. Season 7 had just ended in Italy back then and I was still stuck to a straight Kerry. Plus I'm still too shy to try and venture into Nc-17 slash. I hope it will be a nice trip to the good, old times.  
  
- Many thanks to Ali, who beta read the story.  
  
*** John Carter walked as fast as he could among the crowd of late Christmas buyers which packed the large pavements of Chicago, lit with a thousand colored, intermittent lights and decorated with all sorts of glittering wires and every symbol of Christmas. Angels, stars, sleighs and reindeers were hung at the windows of every shop in the street, and Christmas carols could be heard over the chattering of hundreds of cheerful people.  
  
There was no need of fake snow that year, just like any other he remembered. White, cold flakes had been falling down the dark blue, now starry sky since earlier that day and had already formed a thick path of soft snow on the roofs and on the grounds, soaking the people's heavy clothes.  
  
Carter buried his freezing nose into the collar of his coat, looking annoyingly for his car as people kept bumping into him and stepping onto his feet without apologizing. When he parked the car that morning the street wasn't so full of people and now he couldn't remember where he'd left it.  
  
He swore loudly when a pretty old lady brushed past him and the stingy corner of her package collided with his thigh and quickened again his pace. He had to get out of there, although he still had no idea where to spend the evening.  
  
He'd been at the Carters' mansion only to find out he didn't feel like spending Christmas Eve to a party that looked more like a New Year's Eve one than a religious celebration.  
  
Then he recalled Jerry telling him about a party he and Malucci organized for the ER staff, which should have taken place at the resident's house. Food, music and familiar faces was better than nothing. But then it was also spirits, stupid party games such as "truth or dare" and only God knew what else, knowing his colleagues. He had just had a hell of a shift and he could really use a little silence and relax, which he didn't think he could find at a party, especially if it involved Malucci and the desk clerk.  
  
He wondered how it was like, Christmas with family. He imagined a bright fire sparkle in the fireplace, a big Christmas tree and a joyful chatting family sitting around a well-laid table His parents had always been away from home at Christmas, and although he had plenty of delicacies and presents he felt he never got to enjoy the real atmosphere of that feast. He sighed, leaving the place issue undecided for the moment and concentrated on searching his car.  
  
He was being squeezed between two teenagers when he spotted it at the end of the road, half covered in snow and dry leaves coming from the near-by park.  
  
On the way to his car, in front of the music store, there was one of those Santas who collected money for charity. The sign he was holding said the money would be invested to buy toys for the local orphanage. He checked for his wallet in his pocket and dropped a twenty dollar bill into the pot. The poor man wouldn't stop thanking him.  
  
"It's nothing, really." He waved his hands in front of himself and shook his head, embarrassed. He turned around to eventually reach his car and it was then when he saw it. A collection of the best songs of the 60's in two CDs in a limited Christmas edition with live bonus tracks.  
  
Every time he saw something referring to old music he couldn't help but think of her. The tough as nails Chief of emergency services, who bossed around without respect for anyone's feelings, who scolded him every time she got the occasion to, and with who he continually argued at work. He moved to reach his car, but he wouldn't tear his eyes away from those cds and his thoughts away from Kerry.  
  
How long hadn't he called her like that? He remembered her listening to music and dancing around the kitchen while fixing her irresistible meals, the way she blushed and smiled when he made her the smallest of compliments, her soft crying in her room when she would loose a patient and didn't want to be heard. They haven't seen each other outside the hospital since she asked him to move out of her basement.  
  
At the beginning he was so angry at her he thought he would never be able to talk to her again. Then there was Valentine's Day, with all its consequences, and he was too busy destroying his life to notice her offering to help him and for an answer he shouted at her and insulted her. After Atlanta he had meant to apologize but he was never able to pick up the courage to face her. The same person he had shared the couch and a movie with so many times.  
  
He wondered what she was doing, he hadn't seen her earlier at work, and she wasn't scheduled for the night shift. Maybe she was ill, or more likely, sick of spending Christmases working.  
  
She told him once her adoptive parents were dead and the rest of her family still lived in Africa, and since he had heard no rumors about her seeing someone at work, he reckoned she should be alone at home. Carter thought then he may just show up at her door to wish her a merry Christmas and catch up on each other's life for a while, though he wasn't sure of how she could react. He glanced at the CDs a last time to memorize the title and entered the store.  
  
At last, safe and warm in his car as he drove towards Kerry's house, he let himself drink in the beauty of the city's skyline as Christmas decorations lit it up more than ever and Lake Michigan played wonderful light tricks with the buildings reflection in its dark, calm waters. He finally felt that familiar sensation of excitement only Christmas atmosphere could bring stir up inside his core and spread throughout his whole body, sending goose bumps down his spine. He smiled to himself and pressed further onto the accelerator, eager to arrive to his destination.  
  
A chorus singing Christmas carols. The Papa talking from Piazza San Pietro in Vaticano. And an old Christmas movie.  
  
Kerry sighed heavily and turned the TV off, absently throwing the remote at the end of the couch. She curled in a ball under her blue plush-lined blanket and took a sip of her red wine, getting ready for a long, gray, boring Christmas. It was just like any other day, even worse in actual fact. She almost hated those recurrences. People should be cheerful and serene, enjoy the company of their family and friends, and this only reminded her of how desolately lonely she was. She had no family or friends to celebrate Christ's birth with.  
  
Nobody to share both good and bad moments with. Just a couple of Christmas cards from her cousins in Kenya, which were now stuck on the fridge. Now she wondered why the hell she had asked to have the day off that year.  
  
Maybe just to prove her colleagues that she had something better to do than working on Christmas Eve. As if they gave a damn about her. Proud, stupid Kerry, she told herself. She figured she'll probably spend the whole evening drinking off bottles of expensive Italian wine and crying herself to sleep, like always. She had given up this bad habit during Carter's stay in her basement, but now she heard no more voices and noises in the house that cheered her up and prevented her from getting hysterical from silence and loneliness.  
  
She eventually decided not to loose all her dignity that night and picking up all her strength she got up and reached for the bookcase. Her eyes wandered for a while in her classic books section, but she actually wasn't in the mood for any demanding book, so she went for "the Client", on her favorite books shelf. A bit of action sounded good for an anti-depression therapy. She put on a Tina Turner's Cd and switched the lamp on, leaving the room in a soft dim-light, the perfect atmosphere for an evening of reading.  
  
She had just dug in with the first chapter when she heard the doorbell ring. She looked at her watch. It was 5.00pm, everybody should be at home with their relatives setting for dinner by this hour. She just hoped it wasn't someone in search of money.  
  
She moaned in disappointment as she left the soft warmth of her couch and stopped the music. A striking jolt of pain shot through her bad leg as she hurried up to go answering the door.  
  
"Who is it?" She asked, short of breath, as she put on an old aquamarine robe and pulled it tight around her waist, trying to protect her body from the chilly air of the little hall.  
  
"Uh....it's John Carter." She frowned, confused, as her resident's familiar, uneasy voice reached her ears through the heavy door. She wondered what brought him there, and a thousand thoughts raced through her head as her initial surprise turned into delight at first and then anxiety.  
  
She didn't want him to see her in so miserable conditions, let alone hear a sermon about her being always alone and getting depressed and all. Especially after he had deliberately ignored her for ages. Carter was a nice boy, but he sometimes could get really oppressive when he wanted to act psychological, and she surely didn't want to find herself justifying her behavior to him. Suddenly an evening of auto-commiseration didn't seem a bad prospective anymore to Kerry.  
  
She tried to comb her ruffled hair with her hands but with no avail. The longer it got, the more rebel it was. She thought she should give it a good cut some day.  
  
"Hi John." She said as she finally opened the door, putting on the best smile she could produce at the moment.  
  
'Hi John' and a smile was good, Carter thought. She didn't look angry or annoyed to see him there. He smiled back at her shyly and stood there in the doorway, with his hands in his pockets and letting the snow fall silently onto his head and shoulders, waiting for her to invite him in.  
  
"Come on in. It's freezing out there." She told him, taking a step back to let him inside.  
  
"I hope I'm not disturbing you. Do you have company?" He brushed his feet on the doormat and looked around himself, checking for any changes in the décor of the room.  
  
It was all just as he remembered. On the cream walls hanged several tribal masks and a big artistic picture which showed a beautiful sunset in the African savannah. In the foreground, under an enormous baobab, was sitting a blonde-haired, pensive looking girl who was probably little Kerry.  
  
"You like that picture, don't you?" Kerry's voice pulled him out of his reverie. Utterly embarrassed, he turned back towards her. He hadn't noticed he was actually staring. "Uh...ehm..." He uncomfortably scratched the back of his head. "I caught you studying it several times during your permanence here." She told him.  
  
"It was my father who took it, during a trip in Botswana. I was barely ten." Carter just nodded as he threw a last glance at the picture and stepped forward into the faintly lit living room.  
  
Kerry was folding her blanket when she spotted droplets of water falling from Carter's hair to the floor. It was snowing harder than she thought if he was so drenched.  
  
"I'm gonna bring you a towel, you're soaked. You can hang your coat there in the meanwhile." She motioned with her free hand at the clothes hook standing in a corner, next to a small Christmas tree. "Don't worry, it's all right." He said, following her at the base of the stairs. He had rarely come upstairs even when he lived here. The second floor was Kerry's kingdom, and he respected her privacy and intimacy as much as he could.  
  
"You need to dry your hair off; you don't want to get a cold." She told him in her best 'Doctor' tone. She just couldn't help it, it was just professional bias.  
  
While she was away Carter's eyes scanned the whole room in search of the signs that the euphoria of Christmas had hit her, too, like the rest of Chicago, but apart from the little, but well-decorated Christmas tree, he could only find an even smaller nativity scene and some brand-new spice scented candles standing under the fir. He sighed at the sight and hoped within himself he could help Kerry regain her lost faith in Christmas.  
  
When Kerry came back downstairs Carter was leafing through the book she had left on the couch. She remembered well how surprised he looked when he discovered that her taste in books went far beyond old turgid pieces of writing.  
  
"How many times have you read this one?" He asked when he became aware of Kerry's presence in the room. She shrugged, smiling. -genuinely this time- and handed him the towel. He whispered a thank and rubbed the towel on his head.  
  
"I saw the movie twice." He said casually. "Susan Sarandon makes a great Reggie Love."  
  
"Yeah" She replied quietly, feeling a knot form in her throat and her mood drop as his look fell upon the bottle of wine and the half-filled glass on the coffee table.  
  
"This is no good for you, do you know?" He said, his voice suddenly deadly serious. It wasn't a question, just a statement. And she bet he knew what he was talking about, after the mess he had gone through with his addiction to painkillers.  
  
She sighed. She knew she couldn't avoid that.  
  
"Yeah." She repeated absently, looking down at her feet.  
  
"Dr.Weaver...Kerry..." Calling her by her name sounded more appropriate. That was a kind of conversation you didn't have with your Chief, but with a friend. Kerry immediately raised her hands, gesturing for him to drop the subject. "John, please...would you forget it?" She whined desperately. She didn't want to go through that conversation. Not then. Not with him. Not while they could have a good time together.  
  
"Why do you hurt yourself? Why?" He continued, stubborn as a mule. His tone was soft, though, not accusatory.  
  
She shook her head, shrugging. "Sometimes surrendering is more convenient than fighting." She murmured. She was feeling too weak to try and shut him off.  
  
"I'm not going to buy this bullshit from you." He hissed. "Dammit, you ARE a fighter Kerry. Show me....show yourself you can deal with this like you do with difficulties at work." He said, giving her back the towel. Their hands made contact through the damp fabric and he gently squeezed hers reassuringly.  
  
"Scare your fears like you do with new students at County." He added jokingly, and Kerry snorted as she tried to stifle a chuckle.  
  
"Listen..." She started after a short while, considering the argument closed.  
  
"What about a hot cocoa with my chocolate chips cookies? I backed some yesterday." She suggested. He raised his eyebrows, licking his lips. "Sure. Hell, I miss your cookies. I hope you baked enough for me, I have to catch up." He stood up from the couch and followed her into the kitchen. "Can I give you a hand?" He offered.  
  
"Take the milk and pour it into that saucepan if you don't mind." Kerry said, gesturing towards the stove.  
  
"How did you end up here, by the way?" She asked as she put a pinch of cinnamon powder along with the chocolate in that same saucepan. Cinnamon gave cocoa a really tasty spicy hint which warmed you up. "I mean, I thought you were going to spend Christmas Eve at your grandma's place." She added then. She didn't want him to think she didn't appreciate his visit. It was definitely the other way around.  
  
"I actually went there to take a look, but it's the same boring thing of every year. People who barely know each other keep kissing and hugging and wishing Merry Christmas and showing how compassionate they are. When I was a kid I liked it because I always got a lot of great presents, you know..." He trailed off. "I bet you never received a monkey, though." She said, turning to shoot him a challenging look.  
  
"A monkey." He frowned, his voice and expression obviously skeptical. "Yeah, it was back in Africa, naturally. I was seven, if I remember well. A little Masai boy came to my house with a cute monkey and said it was for me and that he loved me." She blushed a little, the memory of that moment still vivid in her mind.  
  
"C'mon, don't pull my leg." He shook his head at her as his hand furtively sneaked into the bowl where she had put the cookies. "No kidding, really, I'll show you the pictures if you....hey, you thief!" She called out in surprise, slapping the back of his hand to make him drop the cookie.  
  
"Ouch!" He moved his hand back, disappointed, and started massaging it, gazing at Kerry with his best beaten-puppy look. Big, deep chocolate eyes open wide and slightly pouted lips, the one she couldn't easily resist. She sighed and shook her head as she added a good amount of whipped cream to his cocoa. Carter stopped rubbing his hand as Kerry dipped a wafer into the cream. He was astounded she still remembered how he liked to drink hot cocoa. He helped her set both mugs and cookies on a tray and with a fast movement, he took the wafer and crammed it into his mouth, closing his eyes as he enjoyed the mix of crunchy and soft tastes.  
  
"You're hopeless." Kerry chuckled and he grinned triumphantly at her as he set the tray on the coffee table.  
  
They both sat on the couch and Carter immediately helped himself, stuffing two cookies into his mouth while filling his napkin up with a bunch of them with his free hand. As hardworking as Kerry was, she had never struck him as the cooking person, but he had had to change his mind once he discovered she also was a superb cook apart from a skillful doctor. Kerry looked at him chew in amazement. She knew he was a greedy, but she had rarely seen him so ravenous.  
  
"Tell me, how long haven't you been eating?" She asked him, taking a cookie herself.  
  
"Since yesterday." He said with his mouth full. He swallowed down and wiped his mouth from crumbs with a second napkin. "Sorry. I worked 12 hours in a row and haven't had time to eat. That's also why I didn't stay at my parents' party. I felt too exhausted for all those noises and people asking you how you are, what you do...why you aren't married yet..." Kerry nodded in understanding, taking a sip of her cocoa before it could get cold.  
  
It was hot, and sweet. She could almost feel the glucose pour into her blood and run into her veins restoring her physical strength. After another couple of long sips she came to the conclusion that Carter and sugar worked way better than alcohol against depression. The side-effect was the same, though. Addiction.  
  
"While driving home I noticed I was near your zone and since I hadn't paid you a visit in a while, I thought..." He stood up to rummage in his coat pockets, producing a packet wrapped in red paper and tied with a green ribbon. A colored card was attached to it. "Then I wanted to give you this." He said, handing her the small package.  
  
"Thanks." She replied, surprised. She didn't expect to have a good Christmas, let alone receive a gift. She caressed the smooth wrapping paper with her fingertips, tracing the outlines of the packet slowly as if it was the most delicate and precious thing in the world. She wondered what he could have bought her, and over all, she wondered why.  
  
Their relationship had never been the same after she had to ask him to move out of the basement the previous year. All the familiarity, the friendship they had built while living together just faded away day after day, and despite her sporadic attempts to restore that relationship, they ended up barely talking to each other. When they weren't trying to rip each other's throat out.  
  
"Actually, I've got something for you too." She said, standing up to get it. It was a wool sweater they had seen on a trip to Toronto on a weekend they both had off, but that he couldn't buy because the shop was closed. A few weeks later she found one which looked just the same and she bought it, meaning to give it to him for his birthday, but then their relationship cooled down and there it still was, hidden at the far end of a drawer in her bedroom, already wrapped and with a Happy Birthday card.  
  
She took it in her hands and stared at it for a minute that seem to last forever. She wondered if he remembered that weekend. She left the card into the drawer and headed back downstairs, clearing those thoughts off her mind. Carter was there, friendly and nice as the last year had never occurred and she was not alone on Christmas Eve. Nothing else mattered. 


End file.
